Demi Heroes

by Andrew Lynch

  ‘Complicated,’ Gar said.

  ‘Well put, Gar. To cut a long story short, the Succubus, a demon that shows you your greatest sexual desire, impregnated a woman who was related to Darrius. Demons don’t handle pregnancy the same way as mortals, so, as you Humans say, just go with it. Only males would carry the trait, and it has been in his family ever since, the bloodline weakening with every generation. The first few children would have shown very powerful and obvious traits, but by now, as he keeps saying, he has a fifty / fifty chance of his demonic powers working. Basic demonology genetics - I am surprised you do not know,’ Jess finished.

  ‘Oh. Right. So...’

  ‘The trace of the demon allows him to interact with the Succubus on its own terms. Something none of us could do. Demons are the reason we have him in our group.’

  ‘Is true. Hear his music?’ Gar asked.

  ‘Can’t say I’ve heard him play, no,’ Lucian said.

  ‘Terrible,’ Gar admitted.

  ‘Yes, very,’ Jess shrugged. ‘But he can battle demons.’

  The noises from Darrius and Isabelle were really quite off-putting now.

  ‘Is he going to win?’ Lucian asked.

  ‘Hope so,’ Gar said, jiggling his leg, and stroking the wolf - to calm himself more than her.

  ‘And... if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Then we have a full blooded demon to deal with,’ Jess said.

  ‘Which we can’t. In case you missed that,’ Khleb added.

  ‘Ahh.’ Lucian sighed, releasing the tension from his body, resigning himself to waiting for this whole sex-demon thing to sort itself out.

  Chapter 18

  After twenty minutes, in which the sounds emanating from the prison made Lucian feel so embarrassed that he was pretty sure that his struggle to not blush outweighed Darrius' struggle to not... whatever. A loud pop, followed by a gust of wind, signalled the end of the… encounter.

  Darrius stumbled out of the prison, naked, but holding his shirt in a tactical position. He leaned against the door frame. He was far from striking a heroic pose after defeating the enemy. He leaned because the other option was to let gravity win.

  ‘All yours,’ he croaked. He was out of breath, and whatever had happened in there had reopened the stab wound on his chest. A small trickle of blood ran from it.

  Gar leaped up to support his friend over to the guest bed. It looked to be made from gold and Lucian didn’t see how that would be in any way comfortable, but sure enough, as Darrius was lowered on to it, it gave way to his weight like a normal bed.

  Khleb was fascinated and had to examine it closely. ‘Hadn’t thought I'd get such a large sheet of gold out. Too heavy. But this must be some sort of sparse gold.’

  As Lucian caught sight of Darrius' back, he realised that the trickle of blood from his chest was the least of the bard’s problems.

  Darrius clasped Gar’s forearm, nothing more needing to be said between them. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I'll just slow you down. Couldn’t stop another demon if we came across one anyway.’

  ‘You see, a sparse metal is the opposite of a dense metal,’ Khleb said, always a fan of spreading knowledge. At least when it came to stealing things. ‘Gold is a soft metal already, so it makes sense, and it being sparse makes it a sort of super light structure that—'

  ‘Quiet. You’re not stealing a mattress of gold.’ Lucian said, annoyed at the lack of concern Khleb was showing for Darrius. Even for Khleb it seemed unfeeling.

  Lucian knew Darrius was right, and from now on, he’d just slow them down. They'd already lost valuable time as Darrius did battle with the succubus. They needed to catch up with Moxar and make sure he wasn’t interrupted in the final stages of the Quest. There was something else they were meant to do too, right?

  ‘Are you okay here? Or shall we take you out?’

  ‘I'll be fine, sir.’

  ‘What happened in there?’ Lucian asked.

  ‘Just... we did battle,’ was all Darrius would give up. Lucian let it be, and turned to carry on.

  ‘I stay,’ Gar said. Lucian realised that there was nothing he could say to change the Karak’s mind. Nothing he could say.

  Darrius grabbed Gar’s arm weakly. They stared at each other for a few long seconds. Gar pulled his arm away roughly and picked his gear up from where he’d left it against the wall.

  ‘He'll go, sir. The wolf can stay in his place.’

  The succubus hadn’t left a body behind. Demons didn’t die, they just went away for a bit. At least that meant nothing else to clean up for the tourists. Set in the end wall of the short prison, there was a closed door. Some foolish impulse told Lucian to try the emblem on it. Curiosity was never good in these situations, but he just had to know what was through there.

  The door responded, but didn’t open fully. It gave just a crack, just enough to see part of the room beyond.

  A rack. An iron maiden. Rusted cutting implements covered in dried blood. The torture room.

  Of course it was fashionable to call it “interrogation” now, but everyone knew what that meant. Closed off even to the evil minions of Malum, this must be his personal play chamber. Rather modestly sized, all things considered.

  Isabelle may have been a demon, but Lucian didn’t feel anyone deserved torture. He closed the door with a shudder, and pressed on with renewed purpose.

  Leaving the dungeon corridor was made significantly easier thanks to the massive hole left behind by Moxar. They entered another lavishly decorated area, akin to the grand halls they had entered through. This corridor was tighter, a much more normal size. One could even go so far as to say practical. The banners were smaller, the magma light windows not quite so blinding when looked at directly - which Lucian really wished he could stop himself from doing, but the shifting surface beneath the bright light was fascinating him. Doorways lined the hall, but no doors blocked access, and weapon racks were placed at regular intervals. The garrison.

  What was probably more relevant than the interior decorating, were the statues. There was the, by now rote, scattering of rubble and blood on the floor, but there were also statues standing at attention.

  They all froze. ‘Are those statues, or...’ Lucian asked.

  ‘This entire place is charged with strong magic. I cannot pinpoint a specific source,’ Jess said.

  Everyone unslung their weapons, and Gar proceeded, shield raised. They slowed to a crawl as they reached the first doorway. Literally in Khleb’s case as he crawled, inching ahead, peering through the door opposite him. Clearing the room, he sneaked a glance around the opening in the wall he leaned against. He gave Gar a nod, and the group continued along the hallway.

  As Lucian passed the openings, he peered in. Typical bunk beds, with chests at their ends. He had given up being surprised that everything in here was made of a mineral of some sort. A variety of weapons were positioned around the rooms. Oddly, they were all in their racks.

  Now that he noticed it, none of the weapon racks had missing weapons. Lucian had assumed the garrison had been alerted late, and that’s why they had come across so few signs of battle. Did this mean Malum didn’t have many guards? It seemed strange that a dark lord who had captured a God wouldn’t have vast numbers of minions. That was their thing. Ambitious, great benefits, lots of followers. Odd.

  They approached the first set of statues, one on either side of the corridor. Gar set his shield down, and held his sword at arm’s length. Lucian, having lifted that sword in the past, found that a very understated feat of strength.

  Gar prodded one statue and quickly retreated. Nothing. He poked the other one a bit harder. Still nothing. He raised the shield, and the group moved forward.

  As Gar drew level with the silent statues, one of them suddenly lunged at him.

  He didn’t see it coming, and it smacked into his side.

  The team jumped back, ready to fight.

  Unfortunately, Gar had already fallen, and without him, everyone knew they stood li
ttle chance, especially if their record against the comparatively weak Markun was anything to go by. As the statue finished tackling Gar to the ground, Lucian raised his hatchet, ready to strike.

  He knew they'd have to win in the first few seconds.

  The statue shattered on the floor. There was no blood.

  They all felt a bit foolish. Khleb laughed it off, Jess rolled her shoulders to work out the stress. Lucian helped Gar up in much the same way a fly could help up a horse.

  Gar, as always, was remarkably unscathed despite having a statue fall on him.

  ‘Next time, poke less aggressively,’ Lucian suggested.

  Gar brushed some rubble off his head. ‘Smart.’

  Lucian couldn’t tell with Gar’s thick accent, but that sounded like sarcasm.

  They managed the rest of the corridor without incident.

  Moxar’s trail of destruction continued.

  More turns, more rooms, more stone corpses, more stairs. Everything became grand again. Clearly they had moved past the more functional garrison.

  And then they reached the final corridor.

  They came in from a side entrance. Apparently Moxar had been guided in a very roundabout way to the throne room, his instincts taking him past more guards. Presumably for Heroic reasons.

  It was a long corridor. A good twenty metres. The regal red pebbles continued, as did the brilliant magma windows. The rock banners here had gold edging. On the one hand, Lucian felt that no expense had been spared to be ostentatious, but he also felt that if you control rock, then the use of gold wasn’t really that extravagant. It skipped the part where you needed to fight a war to control a mine, then enslave the local population, then raise an empire that enforced a minimum wage and acceptable working conditions making the mine far more expensive to run. Without that, it was just a pleasant colour.

  The giant door at the end was closed, but a throne room needed no announcing. There was a Moxar-shaped hole in one of the great doors, as if he had eschewed Sharfaas and just run straight through the bare rock.

  This meant they were at the very bottom of the subtercastle.

  They started for the throne room. Nerves building up, Lucian found his hands were shaking in excitement.

  ‘So, we're just stopping anyone else from coming in, right, boss?’ Khleb asked.

  ‘Sounds right. Good luck everyone.’ The excitement of the final task always got to Lucian. Even though it was faked. Even though without the Company and his team, Moxar wouldn’t have made it this far.

  Lucian led the group, and had been in on the Quest action from start to finish, so it was practically as good as being the Hero already. Did he really need to leave the group and become a Hero in training?

  He remembered how easily Moxar had cleaved through the guards, and how Markun had almost bested all five of them, and decided that yes, he needed some training. Or at least a magical axe.

  Still, there was no decision to be made until he was offered the role. Who knew, perhaps his unseen watchers would deem him unworthy, and all this worrying would be for nothing.

  Halfway to the throne room a loud crash broke the silence. It came from behind them. They all knew they shouldn’t look back. They should just sprint for the end of the hall.

  They looked back.

  Six guards were running towards them. The crash had been the collapse of a makeshift barrier that Moxar had used to block them. A giant rock. There wasn’t much else to block someone with in this place. Knowing Moxar, he had probably ripped it from a wall with his bare hands and thrown it to block the smaller passage. Classic Moxar.

  These guards were still flesh. Presumably that allowed them to run faster. Damn.

  Gar planted the shield on the floor and raised his sword.

  Everyone grabbed him wherever they could get a grip - arm, armour, anything - and dragged him backwards.

  Of course, one couldn’t simply drag Gar. They just gave him a physical suggestion, and he chose to agree with it.

  He turned and joined them in fleeing. Running away. Retreating.

  Lucian couldn’t think of anything heroic to call it.

  They had almost reached the door when a large chunk of rock, twice the size of Gar, flew across the throne room. Another stone splintering crash echoed in the, now thoroughly disturbed, silence.

  Lucian’s body stopped him from running. A natural reaction to seeing a boulder being flung in a place you were about to enter - but that was still better odds than six stone guards. And he’d always take the chance of being stuck in the room with Moxar than without. Moxar had what the Company often referred to as Hero armour. So Lucian continued forward.

  This all occurred at the speed of thought, so all that happened outwardly was that his eyes widened in fear.

  They all reached the giant doors at the same time. They crashed into each other. Gar, having the most bulk, managed to get pushed through the opening. Now of course Moxar was not a small Human, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t carve out a small hole - not his style - but the crashing of four people was a struggle even for an entrance grand enough for such a Hero. Lucian, Jess, and Khleb all fell backwards.

  Jess, being Jess, was instantly and gracefully back on her feet, like a Human child would be after it fell, completely oblivious to the idea that falling should hurt.

  Khleb, like a slightly older child, was stunned, checked everyone’s face to see if he could get any sympathy from crying, decided against it, and very slowly got to his feet.

  Lucian, of course, acted like an adult, and complained about work safety issues under his breath, while having the dread of knowing that his back would be sore tomorrow.

  As falls go in such a tense situation, it could have been a lot worse.

  They all followed Gar through the Hero-shaped hole and arrived, breathless, in the throne room. Lucian was about to take it all in, really admire every detail, when the continued clatter of feet on stone reminded him that they were about to die.

  As often happened in the heat of action, time slowed. The guards were, at best, ten seconds away from reaching them.

  Lucian needed a plan, and he had to think of it by himself. No time to brainstorm with the group. Had to be quick. Simple. Easy.

  Nine seconds.

  There was no way they could just fight them. Even using the door hole as a choking point. Lucian wasn’t sure they could handle even a single guard.

  Eight seconds.

  They weren’t strong enough to block the hole. At least not without several minutes to roll the flung boulder across the room.

  Seven seconds.

  He looked to his team. Gar seemed game, shield ready. Jess had allowed something to actually affect her composure, and a hint of fear creeped across her face. Lucian saved that image as proof that she wasn’t ambivalent to the concept of life. Khleb’s mouth hung open. Lucian wasn’t even sure what expression it was. Stupified? He may have just been yawning. No help from the team.

  Six seconds.

  He looked at his surroundings. Nothing within reach. No special door regeneration and lock button. A sparse, circular room behind him. A small doorway - no, that was a Moxar entrance if ever he’d seen one - to the side of the room. Through it, there was a lot of interesting stuff that Lucian wanted to have a really good think about, but he put that to the back of his mind for now. He could see Moxar’s muscle-bound form.

  Five seconds.

  What would a Hero do? Not Lucian’s idea of a Hero, but a real Hero. Moxar. What would Moxar do? Lucian was no Hero - with five seconds till a short, bloody fight, he could admit that. How could he save not himself, but his group? Darrius and the wolf wouldn’t get away without their help. He didn’t want to lose his companions. His friends.

  Four seconds.

  The guards were no more than a few strides away. He could even see that one of them - presumably the captain if they were using the standard bigger hat, higher rank, system - was being allowed to go first. No last second crashing int
o each other and falling to the floor for easy stabbing. Lucian could see the captain’s flesh turning to stone. It started at his hands and spread out, starting to cover his limbs. His head was still flesh, but slowly changing.

  A Hero would kill them. Moxar would kill them.

  Three.

  Lucian spun to face whatever epic struggle Moxar was dealing with, pulled back his hatchet for an overarm throw, and let it fly. In a skill borne of terror and the Goddess of Lu... things going surprisingly well for no particular reason, his aim was true. Moxar’s head.

  Two.

  His team, with nothing better to do before their imminent death, watched the axe fly straight at Moxar. Lucian knew what was coming. He threw himself into his team, tackling Jess and Khleb to the ground. Gar rushed to join them.

  One.

  As they were falling to the ground, Moxar sensed the axe. It was the sense of a true Hero. The sense of someone who would kill before thinking. A born Hero. A born killer. Lucian didn’t know the difference now. Moxar, still fending off a dark lord, span round, snatching the haft of the axe out of the air, and without looking, threw it back to the exact point it had come from.

  Zero.

  The captain’s head was showing a tiny slit of flesh, his transformation not quite complete, when the axe buried itself in his head. He dropped to the floor.

  Lucian looked up, and saw what he had expected. Moxar was too busy to deal with these guards. He’d returned the axe, assuming enemies had thrown it. That made sense. With no time to concentrate on the guards, but also needing to stop them from dealing with him, Moxar stalled. He slammed the flat of Sharfaas against the wall, knocking a slab towards the entrance of the enemies. All without even looking!

  Lucian was reminded that regardless of moral fibre and intelligence, at the end of the day, Moxar knew his craft. The slab of rock skittered across the floor, sliding, then tumbling. It almost hit the team, but at the last second hit some tiny speck of something that made it flip up, over his team. It landed squarely, perfectly in the hole, blocking it.